The following message is a public service announcement of particular relevance to the entomological/arthropod research and collections community:
As you may or may not be aware, the SCAN (Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network) portal was retired and taken offline in 2025 by SCAN leadership. It has come to our attention that the portal’s former web address (scan-bugs dot org) lapsed and was subsequently purchased by a Canadian Casino website. Interestingly, they have maintained many pages that look like the original SCAN portal, likely to drive traffic to their site, with links to other real Symbiota portals intermixed with information about casino gaming. It is possible that this site and the associated email (support [at] scan-bugs dot org) could be used for password phishing or other malicious purposes. It is advised that you immediately discontinue use of scan-bugs dot org.
Terrestrial arthropod data in the Symbiota Network can be accessed using Ecdysis. We encourage you to share this message with anyone in your community who may have interacted with one or more of these SCAN “look-alike” websites. The Symbiota Support Hub does not host or administer the SCAN portal or the associated domains, but we are working with SCAN leadership to mitigate the problems.